The Beatles Remastered

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I hate numbering lists but I'm generally happy with this...

1. A Day In The Life
2. Tomorrow Never Knows
3. You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
4. Here Comes The Sun
5. Eight Days A Week
6. Nowhere Man
7. Dig A Pony
8. Dear Prudence
9. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
10. I’m Only Sleeping
11. In My Life
12. Let It Be
13. Something
14. Strawberry Fields Forever
15. Here, There and Everywhere

Great list. Having only two Macca songs in a list of 15 (compared to Harrison's three nods) is just a bonus.

Also, NSW, Norwegian Wood is a fantastic song. Lennon just has too many other noteworthy ones. The British band Cornershop did a cool Punjabi version of it.
 
From Pitchfork, regarding Magical Mystery Tour.....boy did this ever hit home:

"In almost every instance on those singles, the Beatles are either whimsical or borderline simplistic, releasing songs that don't seem sophisticated or heavy or monumental (even though most of them are). In that sense, they're all like "All You Need Is Love" or childhood memories or Lewis Carroll-- easy to love, fit for all ages, rich in multi-textual details, deceptively trippy (see Paul's "Penny Lane" in particular, with images of it raining despite blue skies, or the songs here that revel in contradictions-- "Hello Goodbye"'s title, the verses in "All You Need Is Love"). More than any other place in the band's catalogue, this is where the group seems to crack open a unique world, and for many young kids then and since this was their introduction to music as imagination, or adventure. The rest of the Magical Mystery Tour LP is the opposite of the middle four tracks on the EP-- songs so universal that, like "Yellow Submarine", they are practically implanted in your brain from birth. Seemingly innocent, completely soaked through with humor and fantasy, Magical Mystery Tour slots in my mind almost closer to the original Willy Wonka or The Wizard of Oz as it does other Beatles records or even other music-- timeless entertainment crafted with a childlike curiosity and appeal but filled with wit and wonder."

I have very clear memories of listening to this album time and time again at a friend's house, with two other friends joining us more often than not. We were 10, give or take a year. We could not really place the album in context, all we knew was current disco, rock or pop music. But, somehow, we knew this album, and by extension, the Beatles, represented something different about music, about its properties, its abilities, its potential. We were mesmerized. Up until then, we'd tape a song off the radio and listen to that song again and again (Yes, I was listening to illegally acquired music)...this was the first album any of us listened to front to back, and it opened doors for us, especially for me. I began to seek out more Beatles music, as well as different radio stations, so I could hear something other than the disco and 70's rock that was so pervasive (and which I admittedly liked). This lead me to college radio, as well as talking to those older than me, people with bigger record collections, and this of course lead me to U2 and REM and so on.

I don't consider Magical Mystery Tour to be their best, or even my favorite album. But, it's easily, for me, the most influential or impactful album I have heard.
 
MMT was one of the three I listened to all day on campus. It's completely astounding how many fascinating sounds are jammed into "Strawberry Fields Forever."

The other two were A Hard Day's Night and Revolver. It was my first time hearing "Eleanor Rigby" from the remasters since I've largely been picking and choosing what songs to listen to, with the exception of several spins each for The Beatles,Abbey Road, Beatles for Sale, and Pep's.

But wow, it really sounded bad. The panning is almost cartoonish in it. That song has to sound better in mono. The first time Paul says "Eleanor," the first syllable is centered and then the entire thing goes to the right channel. It's FUCKING DIS-TRACT-ING. So what I'm proposing in the next installment of our Beatles discussion is that we try to come to as much of a consensus as we can on which version of which album/tracks is the essential one.
 
Cool stuff, NSW. I like reading about how people got to where there tastes are now music wise. For some odd reason (considering my dad loved them) I didn't get into The Beatles until high school, but I have very similar memories/associations/influence with the Beach Boys. :up:
 
Cool stuff, NSW. I like reading about how people got to where there tastes are now music wise. For some odd reason (considering my dad loved them) I didn't get into The Beatles until high school, but I have very similar memories/associations/influence with the Beach Boys. :up:

That's funny, cos I came to the Beach Boys quite on my own, many many years later. I mean, everyone knows some of their songs, but I had no idea about Pet Sounds until after college.

I re-read what I wrote about MMT and it still does it no justice to the sense of wonder, joy and sometimes even a hard to describe fear that album made us feel.
 
Rant forthcoming:

In high school, we all submitted songs we'd like to be our senior song. I pushed hard for "In My Life," which really would have been a perfect fit. Apart from my own ballot, it was on a lot of others at my insistence. Many of the kids who simply didn't care or couldn't come up with anything went ahead and followed my suggestion. It eventually made it into the final five, for which there was a vote by all the seniors. Also in the top five were "The Road Goes on Forever" by Robert Earl Keen (Texas, man) and "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake. So obviously I thought it would be a shoo-in. You know what won? Fucking "100 Years" by Five for Fighting.

Go fuck yourselves, class of 2005.
 
I don't consider Magical Mystery Tour to be their best, or even my favorite album. But, it's easily, for me, the most influential or impactful album I have heard.

This is going to sound redundant, but I definitely prefer it to Abbey Road, even if the latter is a better "album".

I don't know if there's a more pleasurable four-song stretch in the Beatles catalogue than Walrus-Hello Goodbye-Strawberry Fields-Penny Lane.

Throw in All You Need Is Love, and my newly-discovered Blue Jay Way and that's as good as any other album's peaks.

Throw in a potato and you got yourself a stew, baby!
 
Rant forthcoming:

In high school, we all submitted songs we'd like to be our senior song. I pushed hard for "In My Life," which really would have been a perfect fit. Apart from my own ballot, it was on a lot of others at my insistence. Many of the kids who simply didn't care or couldn't come up with anything went ahead and followed my suggestion. It eventually made it into the final five, for which there was a vote by all the seniors. Also in the top five were "The Road Goes on Forever" by Robert Earl Keen (Texas, man) and "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake. So obviously I thought it would be a shoo-in. You know what won? Fucking "100 Years" by Five for Fighting.

Go fuck yourselves, class of 2005.

I remember listening to that song a lot when I was finishing up high school as well. Great (hipster) minds think alike, my friend.

Also, Five for Fighting r teh suck.
 
Throw in All You Need Is Love, and my newly-discovered Blue Jay Way and that's as good as any other album's peaks.

Throw in a potato and you got yourself a stew, baby!

There's always been plenty of meat on that "Blue Jay Way" bone. Surprised you weren't always a big fan. It's sublime. "Flying" also is all kinds of great.
 
I should stop posting in here, cos I'm focusing more on emotion than critique.

Still...I just sat here and read all the Pitchfork reviews for the Remasters, and, I don't know, reading Abbey Road's review last, and just thinking about their story...the timeline....their ages when they called it quits....their impact in the macro and micro.....how bewildered I was when Lennon died, knowing it was a huge deal but not sure of why.....remebering seeing Macca in concert in like '91, just sort of as something to do that evening then hearing him spend the last hour of the concert doing nothing but Beatles tunes and knowing that was the closest I was ever gonna get and having the significance of that hit me like a ton of bricks.....what I typed about MMT, etc.....it makes me very emotional, probably for many reasons. Jesus.

I don't know, I'm babbling now sorry.
 
No worse of a babble than my whole "we take the band for granted" jag.

Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but hearing the emotional reactions is ultimately more satisfying than the critiques. It's just really cool that we all have such an intense connection with this music.
 
Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but hearing the emotional reactions is ultimately more satisfying than the critiques. It's just really cool that we all have such an intense connection with this music.

I agree 100%
 
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